The prospect of a functioning water well in a community can unite local people and give them all the motivation they need to achieve a common goal.

That’s what happened in the Nigerian village of Dukpa.

“Our visit to Dukpa revealed the existence of a poor maintenance culture,” reports Hosea Apeh, leader of Lifewater’s well drilling and pump repair team in Nigeria.

“Six wells were available, out of which only two were functional. The other four had been abandoned for years. The wells were left to children to play with, and they innocently filled the wells with debris.”

While the Lifewater team was in Dukpa, they learned that villagers were quarrelling over who should be the local chief. The conflict was doing nothing to address the community’s urgent need for safe water. Many thirsty people were resorting to some very poor water sources.

“Trying to avoid getting caught in the conflict, we informed the community that we would go somewhere else (to repair wells),” Hosea recalls. “Sensing the opportunity they were about to miss, they dropped their differences and urged us to support their community by repairing broken wells. Thankfully, we were able to fix all four abandoned wells, and the joy of the community was without limit!”

In a letter to Lifewater and our faithful donors, Dukpa’s community leaders told us: “The repair of these four boreholes has reduced our stress of going far to fetch water . . . the people of our community are no longer complaining about scarcity of water, all thanks to you.”